The invention relates to digital collaboration, and more particularly to digital display systems which facilitate multiple simultaneous users having access to global workspace data, and to publication of rich content electronic documents composed using such systems.
Digital displays can be used for interactive presentations and other purposes in a manner analogous to whiteboards. Some displays can be networked and used for collaboration, so that modifications made to the display image on one display are replicated on another display. Large scale displays offer the opportunity for more than one user to present or annotate simultaneously on the same surface.
Also, digital displays can comprise large display screens or arrays of screens in a single room, which are configured to provide a large interaction surface. Thus, it is anticipated that the large digital displays may be shared by many users at different times for different collaborations.
In addition, the distributed nature of the system leads to the possibility of multiple users in different places who interact with, and can change, the same workspace data at the same time, and at times when no other user is observing the workspace data.
Such collaboration systems enable creation of rich content workspaces, sometimes referred to as digital whiteboards, with content added to the workspace of a variety of types and from a variety of sources. The rich content is organized spatially rather than by the hierarchical file and page forms typical of prior art systems for storing and creating electronic documents.
The size of the workspace can be virtually unlimited, which can present a problem when one is trying to navigate the shared workspace. Co-pending U.S. application Ser. No. 15/147,576 and U.S. application Ser. No. 15/147,224, incorporated by reference above describe tools to address problems with navigation of unlimited space, including the creation and use of location markers and a “follow” mode for real time tracking of collaborators.
A workspace not only may have a very large size, but may include graphical objects of variant types located in the workspace, where the variant types of objects are rendered using different processes and sometimes proprietary processes. The large size and variant content make it impractical in prior art workspace technologies to share the workspace outside of the collaboration system.
It is desirable to share the rich content in ways that are portable, enabling the viewing of the content on external platforms not connected with the collaboration system.